1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to network information access and, more particularly, to software, systems and methods for serving web pages in a coordinated fashion from multiple cooperating web servers.
2. Relevant Background
Increasingly, business data processing systems, entertainment systems, and personal communications systems are implemented by computers across networks that are interconnected by internetworks (e.g., the Internet). The Internet is rapidly emerging as the preferred system for distributing and exchanging data. Data exchanges support applications including electronic commerce (e-commerce), broadcast and multicast messaging, videoconferencing, gaming, and the like.
The Internet is a collection of disparate computers and networks coupled together by a web of interconnections using standardized communications protocols. The Internet is characterized by its vast reach as a result of its wide and increasing availability and easy access protocols. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous nature of the Internet results in variable bandwidth and quality of service between points. The latency and reliability of data transport is largely determined by the total amount of traffic on the Internet and so varies wildly seasonally and throughout the day. Other factors that affect quality of service include equipment outages and line degradation that force packets to be rerouted, damaged and/or dropped. Also, routing software and hardware limitations within the Internet infrastructure may create bandwidth bottlenecks even when the mechanisms are operating within specifications.
Users connect to the Internet through a variety of mechanisms, but many mechanisms use shared bandwidth connections. For example, data connections using broadband wireless access (BWA), cellular telephones and cable modems typically share a given amount of bandwidth amongst a plurality of users. Each user's data is transported on a first-in first-out (FIFO) basis. In such a transport medium, there is no mechanism for prioritizing some data over other data, or some users over other users. Prioritization has not been an issue in many applications because the average latency of such networks has been sufficiently low and sufficiently uniform to provide acceptable performance. However, there is an increasing demand for network applications and data access that cannot tolerate high and variable latency.
In e-commerce applications, it is important to provide a satisfying user experience that leads to a purchase transaction. To provide this high level of service, a web site operator must ensure that data is delivered to the customer in the most usable, efficient, and timely fashion. Also, the web site operator must ensure that critical data received from the customer is handled with priority. Until now, however, the e-commerce site owner has had little or no control over the transport mechanisms from the Internet to a user device that affect the latency and quality of service.
While efforts are continually being made to increase the capacity and quality of service afforded by the Internet, it is contemplated that congestion will always impact the ability to predictably and reliably offer a specified level of service. This is particularly true in wireless and other shared bandwidth transport media that historically oversubscribe the available bandwidth. Moreover, the change in the demand for bandwidth increases at a greater rate than does the change in bandwidth supply, ensuring that congestion will continue to be an issue into the foreseeable future. A need exists for a system to exchange data that provides a high quality of service even during periods of congestion.
The communication mechanisms linking a user to the Internet are often referred to as the “last-mile”. Because the last-mile connectivity must fan out to reach a large number of users, there is great emphasis on shared bandwidth mechanisms that enable any infrastructure investment to be leveraged over many users. The last-mile provider (e.g., a broadband wireless access provider, cable company, or cellular telephone company) provides routers that couple to the Internet, and wireless transceivers that couple between the routers and users to implement the shared bandwidth medium.
In general, once data communication leaves the confines of the Internet into a shared bandwidth medium, web sites and infrastructure entities that attempt to provide prioritization loose the ability regulate and control the flow of data communication over the last-mile. While the last-mile provider may attempt to provide bandwidth management within their network, there currently is no mechanism for an Internet entity, such as a web site, to readily manipulate the shared bandwidth medium.